Aloha,

Here in the United States we are getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving. It is usually a time for families to gather and give thanks. As I began to collect ingredients for the holiday meals I pulled out my mom’s cookbook. It is all written by hand and this year i noticed little notes she’d written about where, when and how she got the recipes. She died in a car accident over 25 years ago and thanks to those notes I can feel her beside me while I am cooking.

As you might gather by now I love doing research and came up with some interesting facts about Thanksgiving.

In 1789 President George Washington proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving in honor of the United States Constitution.

In 1846 Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of a Godey’s
Lady’s Book magazine began a campaign to have the last Thursday in November
designated as a national Thanksgiving Day. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln decided that the
national Thanksgiving Day would be held on the last Thursday in
November.

In 1941 Congress named the fourth Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day rather than the last Thursday of the month.

The first Thanksgiving was held in 1621 when the the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast.  Only half the colonist had survived the first winter and in the spring the Wampanoag Indians shared their seeds and showed the colonists how to grow corn.

Harvest celebrations had been a tradition among many Native American tribes and in Europe before the arrival of Christianity.The act of giving thanks can be both spiritual and secular. I think gratitude as an every day practice is one of the most powerfu lthings we can do for ourselves.

For this Thanksgiving I offer this short Thanksgiving Prayer:

May the love of the angels enfold you
May the angels bring you blessings beyond comprehension
May your heart be open and filled with gratitude
And may you feel the guidance of the angels now and always.

With love, gratitude and aloha,
Susan